Catching Up - Michael's Toolbox

I'm taking another stab at getting this blog up to date with my projects.  I had surgery yesterday on my knee and will be in bed for a few days, so I hope to use some of this time to get completely up to date.  Today I'm posting about the toolbox I built with my oldest son, Michael, when he was in Kindergarten.  I got motivated when reading a post Here by Joshua Klein on his The Workbench Diary blog which was one of my favorite blogs.  He had made a small 18th century style workbench for his son Eden for Christmas and I saw all these great pictures of 5 year old Eden sawing and planing and thought that if he could it, then Michael who is the same age, could surely do it.  Joshua has since moved on from his Workbench Diary blog and created my new favorite magazine, Mortise & Tenon, which you can check out Here.

We designed Michael's toolbox much like my early 20th century carpenter's job box. It is a basic dovetailed box with dovetailed trim.  The lid has a registered fit on the box making for a very sturdy toolbox that should last him a lifetime.  I was actually quite surprised and impressed at how much Michael was able to do at his age.  He did much of the sawing and even chopped some dovetails with my help.  Here are some pictures of Michael at work:

Using the saw his grandpa got him for Christmas

Learning to chop his first dovetails

Sawing dovetails in the trim 

Cleaning up the joints with a small hand plane

Using a router to make recesses for the hinges

Competed toolbox prior to painting

Michael chose a nice red pain that we had on hand

Finished toolbox